Adam Lewis Bingaman | |
|---|---|
 portrait miniature by Benjamin Trott | |
| Born | 11 February 1793  |
| Died | September 1869 (aged 75–76) |
Adam Lewis "A.L." Bingaman (February 11, 1793 [1] - September 6, 1869 [2] ) was an American politician. He held the top offices of both houses of the Mississippi Legislature: was the President of the Mississippi State Senate from 1838 to 1840, and the Speaker of the Mississippi House of Representatives from 1834 to 1836.
Bingaman studied law in Massachusetts, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts, Harvard University Class of 1812. [3] While at Harvard, by arrangement, Adam lived in Boston with the sister of Winthrop Sargent (former Governor of the Mississippi Territory). Judith Sargent Murray, Winthrop's sister, was a highly regarded feminist essayist, poet, and playwright, whose husband, John Murray, was the founder of organized Universalism in America. Adam was drawn to their daughter, Julia Maria Murray, and the two married secretly before Adam was called home to Natchez. Many months went by without word from Adam, but when Julia Maria gave birth to their daughter, Charlotte, Winthrop Sargent intervened with the Bingaman family in Natchez and Adam was directed travel to Boston and return with his wife and child. By then, John Murray had died. Not wanting to part with her daughter and granddaughter, Judith Sargent Murray also relocated to Natchez -- just when her young cousin Henrietta Sargent, Lydia Maria Child, and other Boston abolitionists were starting to incorporate Judith's political essays into their own arguments for equality.
Murray, her daughter, and granddaughter went to live at Fatherland, the Bingaman family plantation in Natchez, Mississippi. [4] Life on the plantation was privileged. The noted race horse, Lexington was stabled at the Bingaman plantation while being trained by John Benjamin Pryor, the horse trainer at the top of his field. Bingaman was a slaveholder, holding 230 slaves in 1850 and 310 in 1860. [5] Bingaman had a relationship with a free black woman, Mary E. Williams, and may have fathered as many as six children: Frances Ann, wife of Pryor; Cordelia, Emilie, Marie Sophie Charlotte, James and Henriette. [6]
As a member of the Mississippi House of Representatives in 1833, Bingaman headed a select committee during the Nullification Crisis that preceded the American Civil War. [7] He served as the president of the State Senate from 1838 to 1840. Bingaman was described by his peers as "a man of rare qualifications for a popular leader, being gifted by nature in mind and personal appearance (which was most dignified and commanding), with a polished education and fascinating manners; he was a natural orator." [8] After Charles Lynch was elected governor of Mississippi, Bingaman read Lynch's inaugural speech to the Mississippi Assembly. [9] Bingaman's reputation as an orator was heightened by his speech to General Andrew Jackson at Natchez in January 1840. [10]
Natchez is the only city in and the county seat of Adams County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 14,520 at the 2020 census. Located on the Mississippi River across from Vidalia, Louisiana, Natchez was a prominent city in the antebellum years, a center of cotton planters and Mississippi River trade.
Robert Charles Winthrop was an American lawyer, philanthropist, and Whig Party politician who represented Massachusetts in the United States House and Senate from 1840 to 1851. He served as the 18th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives and was a political ally and colleague of Daniel Webster. After a rapid rise in Massachusetts and national politics and one term as speaker, Winthrop succeeded Webster in the Senate. His re-election campaign resulted in a long, sharply contested defeat by Charles Sumner. He ran for Governor of Massachusetts in 1851 but lost due to the state's majority requirement, marking the end of his political career and signaling the decline of the Massachusetts Whig Party.
The Boston Brahmins, or Boston elite, are members of Boston's historic upper class. From the late 19th century through the mid-20th century, they were often associated with a cultivated New England accent, Harvard University, Anglicanism, and traditional British-American customs and clothing. Descendants of the earliest English colonists are typically considered to be the most representative of the Boston Brahmins. They are considered White Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASPs).
Luke Pryor was a U.S. senator from the state of Alabama. He was appointed to fill the Senate term left by the death of George S. Houston and served from January 7 to November 23, 1880, when a replacement was elected. Pryor was a Democrat. He is interred at City Cemetery in Athens, Alabama.
Winthrop Sargent was an American politician, military officer and writer, who served as Governor of Mississippi Territory from 1798 to 1801, and briefly as acting Adjutant General of the U. S. Army in 1791. He was a member of the Federalist party.
Judith Sargent Stevens Murray was an early American advocate for women's rights, an essay writer, playwright, poet, and letter writer. She was one of the first American proponents of the idea of the equality of the sexes so that women, like men, had the capability of intellectual accomplishment and should be able to achieve economic independence.
John Benjamin Pryor, was an American Thoroughbred racehorse trainer. He trained Lexington, a top racehorse of the 1850s whose excellence in competition and reputation as a sire stud continued well into the 20th century, earning the horse induction into the United States' National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in 1955.
Winthrop Donaldson Jordan was an American historian and professor who specialized in the history of slavery in the United States and racism against Black Americans. His 1968 work White Over Black: American Attitudes Toward the Negro, 1550-1812 was awarded the National Book Award in History and Biography.
Henry Winthrop Sargent, American horticulturist and landscape gardener.
John Sargent was an American Loyalist during American Revolution who was exiled to Canada where he became a politician.
Paul Dudley Sargent was a privateer and soldier in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War.
Stephen Duncan was an American planter and banker in Mississippi. He was born and studied medicine in Pennsylvania, but moved to Natchez District, Mississippi Territory in 1808 and became the wealthiest cotton planter and the second-largest slave owner in the United States with over 2,200 slaves. He owned 15 cotton and sugar plantations, served as President of the Bank of Mississippi, and held major investments in railroads and lumber.
Gloucester is a historic mansion in Natchez, Mississippi. It is located on Lower Woodville Road in South Natchez. It was designed by local architect Levi Weeks and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.
Stephen Minor (1760–1815) was an American plantation owner and banker in the antebellum South.
Abijah Hunt (1762–1811) was an American merchant, planter, slave trader, and banker in the Natchez District.
Daniel Sargent Sr. was an American merchant in Gloucester, Massachusetts, and then Boston.
Colonel Epes Sargent was an American landowner, merchant, politician and military officer from Gloucester, Massachusetts.
Elizabeth Dunbar Murray of Natchez, Mississippi, was an author, director, impersonator, and conducted the Murray School of Expression.
James Campbell Wilkins (1787–1849) was an American businessman and political figure who served as a Mississippi territorial legislator, prospered as merchant of Natchez district, and owned thousands of acres and hundreds of slaves in the lower Mississippi River valley in the first half of the 19th century.
The Pharsalia Race Course in Mississippi was established around 1790 in what was then Spanish West Florida. Pharsalia Race Course was considered the premier horse racing venue in Mississippi prior to the American Civil War.
